Kevin Brosseau is Canada’s new ‘fentanyl czar’

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OTTAWA — Canada has its very own “fentanyl czar.”

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On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office announced that former RCMP deputy commissioner Kevin Brosseau will be taking on the job of working with Canada’s law enforcement agencies and their U.S. counterparts to eradicate the “scourge of fentanyl.”

“With an over 20-year career in public safety and national security including tackling drug trafficking and organized crime, Mr. Brosseau will bring tremendous value to this position, and his work will help keep Canadians safe,” said Trudeau in a press release.

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Brosseau recently served as deputy national security and intelligence advisor to the prime minister, where he “navigated Canada’s most sensitive security challenges” read the release. He was also assistant deputy minister in the fisheries and transport departments.

Prior to his work in the federal public service, Brosseau served in the RCMP for over 20 years, including as deputy commissioner and as commanding officer in Manitoba.

Trudeau promised to appoint a fentanyl czar last week amongst a slew of measures meant to reinforce the Canada-U.S. border in exchange for a 30-day reprieve on U.S. tariffs.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Doug Ford, who is running for re-election as Ontario premier, have been increasing the pressure on Trudeau to appoint a person in the role as soon as possible to mitigate any further risks of tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump.

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“It’s been a whole week. This can’t be the speed we operate at,” criticized Ford on Monday, seven days after Trudeau first announced that he would nominate a fentanyl czar.

Public Safety Minister David McGuinty has characterized the role as a liaison between the Canadian and U.S. governments to better combat the flow of fentanyl, as well as work across different departments from Health Canada to Global Affairs Canada.

“Fentanyl is a foreign affairs issue, it’s a law enforcement issue, it’s an intelligence issue, it’s a public health issue, it’s a tracing issue, in terms of the ingredients that end up being used in the production of fentanyl,” he told reporters last week.

Trudeau’s press release reads that while less than one per cent of the drug that is intercepted at the U.S. border comes from Canada, “any amount of fentanyl is too much.”

On top of the fentanyl czar, the government has promised to have nearly 10,000 frontline personnel working on protecting the border, including 8,500 Canada Border Services Agency staff as well as RCMP officers and members of provincial and local police forces.

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Trudeau has also signed a new intelligence directive last week giving security agencies more capacity to gather intelligence on transnational organized crime and to share it with American partners and law enforcement across the continent.

— With additional reporting from Stephanie Taylor. 

National Post
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